Fracture

by Andres Neuman

  Since his arrival, Mr. Watanabe’s sense of smell has been sending him disconcerting signals. He has the impression that this place somehow smells like yesterday. As if smells reach his nose with a delay, like when sound and image are out of sync. The only aroma that remains independent of time is that of damp salt.

  It’s also hot and getting hotter. The lack of movement in this place seems to have fixed the strips of sunlight. Watanabe undoes another shirt button.

  He wonders whether Hirodai is like this at all hours of the day, or if the remaining inhabitants are finishing their lunch. He heads toward the town center. Everything looks as unscathed as it does deserted. Streets without cars. Houses without inhabitants. Shops without customers. Schools without students. This is the without town, he thinks. There’s no destruction: just subtraction. A pure subtraction. A number minus itself.

  Everything has the look of a house that’s for sale. Lowered blinds, parched flowerpots. Dried mud on the benches, fountains no longer running. Squares visited only by the cats and dogs that run over to lick his shoes. Buses with seats draped in white fabric, transporting ghosts. Closed temples. Idle offices, bureaucracies that have finally achieved perfection.

  * * *

  Watanabe finally comes across a few people, all of them elderly, moving slowly along and propping themselves against walls. Gazing into infinity, their faces covered with surgical masks.

  All children and young people appear to have been evacuated. Only grandparents, great-grandparents, elderly widows and widowers chose to remain. This place, he reflects, has turned into a kind of demographic prophecy. The rehearsal of a future where only the past exists. Chained to a post, a bicycle leans.

  All of a sudden, on a street corner, he sees an old man kicking the air. He seems to be carefully following the movements of something Watanabe can’t see, possibly an insect or something stuck to his trouser leg.

  Mr. Watanabe approaches gingerly. When they are almost on top of each other, the old man raises his head and asks his name.

  Ah, says the old man. I met a Yoshie many years ago. His family was from Toyama. Good people. They loved the sea. He studied things. Strange things. I once saw his photograph in the newspaper because he had died. My name is Sumiteru, a pleasure.

  Unable to curb his curiosity, Watanabe asks what the old man had been doing before he walked up to him.

  When? replies Sumiteru. Just now? Ah, playing soccer. I always wanted to. When I was young, when our country won the bronze medal, I dreamed of going to the Olympics. Back then no one around here had the slightest interest in soccer. But it’s never too late to play.

  ON HIS WAY BACK TO THE CAR, he walks past the entrance to a small guesthouse. In carefully painted lettering, a sign announces: HINODESO MODERN MINSHUKU. Although the guesthouse gives every impression of being closed, the sound of a radio reaches him from inside. With nothing to lose, and assuming there won’t be many choices of places to stay, he calls out a couple of times.

  The radio falls silent. After a long pause, footsteps grow louder as they approach the door.

  A stocky man in a stained apron appears, a pair of rubber gloves dangling from the pocket. The stains don’t look as though they were made by food, but something thicker and shinier.

  Bowing, Mr. Watanabe explains he is searching for somewhere to stay the night. The man bows in return and ushers him inside.

  The Hinodeso guesthouse looks modest but pleasant. Apparently Mr. Satō, its owner, is the sole occupant.

  Forgive me for taking so long to open the door, says Mr. Satō. I was out in the back, repairing some ceramics. Do you like kintsugi?

  More and more, replies Watanabe.

  Do you practice it?

  You could say that.

  I used to when I was young. Then, what with the family, I let it slide. Until I said to myself recently: Why not? Naturally, I only use cheap objects. What’s important is repairing them. Do you have a moment?

  Mr. Satō hurries off, disappearing into the back of the building. He returns holding a cracked bowl in both hands. Gold radiates from the base, as if it were supporting a sun tree.

  Look, says the owner, what lovely cracks.

  * * *

  When Watanabe confirms that he wishes to stay at the hostel, Mr. Satō glances toward the entrance, and—with the expression of someone contemplating an endless line of people waiting—announces that the house will offer him the biggest room at the standard price. He thanks the man with a sardonic grimace and goes outside to fetch his luggage.

  On his return, the owner is no longer wearing his apron and has adopted an air of enthusiastic efficiency. He asks Watanabe if he is hungry. He admits he is. The owner instantly brings him soup with tempura left over from his lunch. He downs the remains with a voracity he himself finds surprising. His host sits down across from him.

  There were thousands of us here in Hirodaimachi, says Mr. Satō. Now only twenty or thirty are left. At first, I thought of leaving, like everyone else. How could I not be worried about Fukushima? But I felt I didn’t have the strength to move, and the town, as you’ve seen, is intact. As we’re on a hill, the tsunami didn’t affect us. Besides, where would I go at my age? I prefer to stay in my own home. My memories are here and memories need their own space, don’t you think? What I miss most are my grandchildren. My daughter Suzu decided to take them away with her until the situation improves. I agree it’s for the best. I hope they’ll be able to come back soon. Life without grandchildren is too long. That’s what my deceased wife used to say. Do you remember Kurosawa’s seven?

  Watanabe nods, finishing the soup with a slight sucking sound.

  That’s how I want to go, Mr. Satō continues. Listening to the sails of a windmill. Or in the mountains, like my grandfather. My grandfather loved the mountains. Whenever he had a problem, he would leave the village and climb to the top of Mount Otakine to meditate. Do you know what he did when he realized he no longer had the strength to carry on climbing? He decided to go up one last time and there he stayed, waiting for the end.

  And how long did your grandfather have to wait up there? asks Watanabe, wiping the corners of his mouth.

  To be honest, I don’t know, replies Mr. Satō. It was before I was born. My father told me about it.

  * * *

  After appointing him as guest of honor, with a hint of ceremony Mr. Satō hands him a key ring with a metal ball attached. Heavy, grubby, a thing of beauty. That’s the key to our exotic room, he explains: Western style. No sliding panels. A large double bed instead of a tatami. And a raised dining table.

  When American tourists came, the owner says, they often used to ask for that room. That, and forks. It was quite amusing.

  Mr. Watanabe walks along the corridor, rolling the metal ball in his fingers. He’d almost forgotten the way an old-fashioned fob smells, of damp metal and multiple hands. He’s never been against technological progress, not to mention that he’d made a living from it, and yet he regrets that it has caused the loss of such smells. Most modern doors work with a disposable key card or a digital code. Weightless. Inodoro. This is what he is thinking now as he clasps the keys.

  He enters the bedroom, slips off his shoes, and, following his usual custom, puts out his few belongings. His clothes in the wardrobe next to the door. His toiletries in the bathroom. His devices charging in an outlet. Ōe’s book on the bedside table. Then he slides his little red suitcase under the bed, like a pet that has just digested a meal.

  He has always felt comfortable living in hotels: bursting in, spreading out, and quickly running away. He enjoys the combination of a strange place and a portable home. The possibility of a private space where one leaves no traces, or rather, where one’s traces merge with those left by a continuous throng. We also take our past with us to hotels, Watanabe believes, but that past becomes present, it is nomadic.

  In his experience, the art of packing isn’t what to include but what to leave out. The more selective we are, the
more our luggage resembles us. Not a bundle of possessions: an assortment of sacrifices.

  Once he’s settled in, while he is relieving himself in the bathroom, Mr. Watanabe goes online for a few minutes. He checks his inboxes. He sends a message to the Arakakis, thanking them for their hospitality. He visits Mr. Sasaki’s blog. He reads the latest entry, smiles, and leaves a comment.

  Afterward, he comes out of the bathroom and searches for one of his webcams. He needs to make sure that the world is still out there, enjoying life regardless.

  He has a quick shower. He changes his clothes, buffs his shoes. He puts a couple of things in his leather bag and slings it over his shoulder.

  THE AFTERNOON BURNS his forehead. He has left his phone charging in his room but doesn’t care. He has just set a goal for himself that enthuses him: to meet every remaining inhabitant of this abandoned village. Given that he has already seen at least a dozen of them, he thinks this is achievable.

  He wants to see, greet, approach those people. Mr. Watanabe feels they all belong to the same family, a small gathering of the last ones.

  As he walks through the emptiness of Hirodai, he feels he is fulfilling an ancient fantasy. To contemplate what life looks like when there should be no one left. A posthumous perspective.

  * * *

  For a few minutes, he follows an elderly man with a green plastic watering can who is inspecting the houses in the town center, window by window. He pauses at every flowerpot, raises his arm, and sprinkles slowly. He goes from the houses to a garage, where he refills the container time and again. His movements convey a recognizable type of effort: when one’s will prevails over physical limitation.

  During one of his breaks, Watanabe walks over to the garage and says hello. Surprised and pleased to see a visitor, the old man invites him inside. He offers him a cup of tea, which Watanabe gladly accepts. If his taste buds aren’t deceiving him, it is the same green tea that he normally drinks in Tokyo.

  The old man’s name is Ariichi. When he was young, he explains, he put his savings into the garage, the first in the town. Later on, his sons took it over. Now it belongs to no one. Every day, he does his rounds in the different parts of the village, to look after the outdoor plants of the neighbors who have left. Unlike Mr. Satō, he is convinced they’ll be returning shortly or at least that if he does the watering, they’ll come back sooner. The few who have stayed behind seldom leave their houses. He thinks this is foolish. Watanabe asks him about the radiation.

  The radiation doesn’t scare me in the slightest, says Ariichi. Before the cancer gets me, I’ll die of old age. The others think they’re scared of the nuclear plant but believe me, it’s not that. What frightens them is death and they won’t avoid it by shutting themselves away in their bedrooms.

  Over his second cup of tea, Watanabe discovers that Ariichi’s apparent calm belies a different anxiety. His main concern is for the graves of his ancestors that lie in a burial ground a little farther north, two or three kilometers inside the prohibited zone. He has visited them there all his life and envisaged his grave next to theirs. Although he has had no trouble gaining access to the cemetery, what if all of a sudden they refuse to let him in? Recent rumors have made him fear this possibility. That’s why he thinks that, when the next Obon comes, all the neighbors should gather on the shore to light bonfires in honor of their dead.

  I don’t feel ready yet, he says, to cross the frontier. I need them to wait, do you see? To wait for me a little longer.

  * * *

  Wandering away from the town center, Yoshie makes out in the distance a tiny old woman in a doorway, wrapped prematurely in a shawl, as if the chill to come at nightfall could make her catch a cold beforehand.

  As he draws nearer and his tired eyes start to focus on the old lady, Mr. Watanabe realizes she is positioned differently than he’d first thought. Or rather, even if he had perceived her correctly, his mind modified the image to make sense of it. She isn’t facing the street leaning against the door, but rather the exact opposite. She has her back to him and her face is pressed up against the door, like a salamander.

  He is able to discern her movements only once he is a few meters closer: the old lady is trying to force the lock using some sort of implement, pushing the door with an aggression incongruous with someone her age. (And gender, thinks Watanabe; then he recalls his arguments with Lorrie and feels ashamed in midthought.)

  Hearing his footsteps, she stops pummeling the door and turns toward him, giving him her sweetest smile. She asks if he’s connected with the police. He introduces himself, explains that he is passing through and that he is staying at the Hinodeso guesthouse. She welcomes him to Hirodai. Declares that she is pleased to meet him, but doesn’t mention her name.

  I’ve run out of rice, the old lady explains, concealing the implement beneath her shawl. No rice and no preserves. I know that my neighbors have some. They left weeks ago, or was it months, I don’t remember. They have some, I’m sure. It’s difficult to cook here. What would you do without rice?

  I’d order sushi over the phone, replies Watanabe, failing in his attempt to crack a joke.

  She fixes him with her stern gaze.

  They don’t need the rice, she says, or the preserves. Don’t you think it’s a waste? All that food in there. I’ve seen it from the yard, on the shelves. If they come back one day, I’ll apologize and thank them. There are several jars, all full.

  He nods, preoccupied by the blotches on her hands, her raised knuckles: an archipelago with five stony islands.

  Now, sir, the old lady adds with a bow, if you’ll excuse me …

  And she brusquely resumes her hammering, paying him no more attention, as if Watanabe had vanished into thin air.

  * * *

  What about the trains? he wonders sometime later, what’s become of the trains that no longer depart, the cars no one enters, the platforms waiting for someone to wait on them? What fraction of the world’s journeys is lost each time a train remains in place?

  All the lines that used to run through the region, a couple of incalculable age informs him in wispy voices, have been suspended. It is suspected that the tracks linking the town to Hirono, Hisanohama, and other places might contain high levels of radiation due to the transport of waste from the nuclear power plant.

  Mr. Watanabe asks for directions and heads for the station.

  No sooner has he entered the building than a rumble of metal startles him. A screech in motion, rotating, growing.

  A moment later, he sees the man in a wheelchair.

  The man coming toward him, screeching as he smiles.

  His name is Mr. Nakasone, a former ticket collector at the station. He worked here all his life, he says, until he had the accident. He has never lived anywhere else. In his present condition, moving out of his home would create more problems than it would solve. He now depends on the few families who have stayed behind. While there’s at least one neighbor willing to help, he prefers to remain. He has two homes, counting the station. The trains are his family, he explains.

  Those trains that he has seen depart and arrive so often he has lost count, he recalls, motioning into the distance. He means this literally: for many years he kept a precise tally of the number of train services he supervised. Not out of vanity, he adds, but just to be aware of the passage of time.

  Afterward he names the few living relatives he has left, including a cousin in Futaba. The other day, two soldiers came to her house and took her away. They had an evacuation order. At first, his cousin slammed the door in their faces. The soldiers read out a decree. His cousin argued that by staying in her house she was harming no one but herself. They told her that wasn’t the issue. Of course it is! she protested.

  They move together toward the platforms. Watanabe offers to push the wheelchair, Mr. Nakasone refuses with an abrupt gesture. He immediately changes his mind, and rubs his forearms.

  It’s not because of my arms, he clarifies, but because it’s
comforting.

  They advance in silence along the station walkway. The only noise is the screech of wheels, like a stream of rodents.

  Watanabe notices the old clock presiding over the entrance to the platforms. It is speckled with shadows.

  Isn’t it a bit behind? he comments.

  That clock hasn’t worked for years, replies Mr. Nakasone.

  Lifting some caution tape out of the way, they emerge into the open air. The heat is starting to subside. The light divides, rectifies the tracks.

  It’s very strange, says the former ticket collector. The platforms seem smaller when they are deserted like this.

  They approach the tracks. Look down at them.

  Are there only these two platforms? Watanabe asks.

  Only these two, Mr. Nakasone nods. One to arrive and the other to leave. No need for more.

  HE REACHES THE TOWN’S VANTAGE POINT and, wrinkling his brow behind his sunglasses, he turns in a slow circle.

  He looks south, toward the invisible city of Tokyo. He looks west, where the mountains are shining. North, where weeds have overrun the fallow fields and the high-voltage cables dwindle toward the nuclear power plant at Fukushima. Watanabe tries to imagine that energy moving back and forth, its fiery course. Then, finally looking east, he searches for the sea.

  He descends the steps leading from the hilltop to the beach. He does so with great care, taking pains not to trip on the stones. No doubt it would have been a lot easier to drive down, but he knows full well that when he has a steering wheel between his hands, his natural impulse is to leave. And right now, he still has a mission to complete. If his math is correct, there should be at least two or three inhabitants left to see.

  He pauses at the foot of the steps to enjoy the ocean, seeping in between the rocks with the sound of rolling dice. His nostrils fill with its scent, a scent that seems like the very first to have existed on earth.